Monday’s blast at Nyanya Bus Park on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, could have been averted had the Defence Headquarters responded appropriately to a security tip-off, an activist with the Rights and Democracy Volunteers, Sani Aliyu, said yesterday.

A report this morning in The Guardian quotes Aliyu as telling a roundtable organised by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Foundation in Abuja to discuss cooperation between civil society organisations and the media on the security challenge in Nigeria that about a week ago, he spotted some young men in town early in the morning with bands on their heads, smoking.

“I immediately went to the military headquarters and reported,” he narrated. “The boys themselves, in vehicles, came to the front of the military headquarters and stood for some time and the military did not do anything.

“Yesterday (Monday), when the bombing happened, I went back to the military headquarters but they told me they couldn’t arrest the boys because they didn’t have the authority to arrest them.”

The Nigerian Government has confirmed 75 people dead in the twin bomb blasts and over 200 injured.

•Photo shows scene of the blasts.